How It Goes
by Zayz
Summary: LJ. "While awkwardness prevails, this is just how it goes. Open mouth and insert foot, babe." R&R?


**A/N**: The reason this exists is mainly because Lily Allen's new song, "Who'd Have Known," was so lovely and because I needed something breezily adorable, to keep myself interested in writing. It's light; I'm not in the mood to create some kind of masterpiece.

So, that being said, read and review, if you please. And check Lily Allen out too, while you're at it. You Tube is only a few keystrokes and mouse-clicks away…

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_And even though it's moving forward  
There's just the right amount of awkward  
And today you accidentally called me baby_

_We exist but we're taking it slow  
Let's just see how it goes  
Let's see how it goes_

- Lily Allen, "Who'd Have Known"

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**How It Goes  
****By: Zayz**

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When you're young, things aren't complicated.

It's right or wrong, good or bad, black or white. Easy. You make a choice and you stick with it. The walls of your world are limited to the fences of your backyard. Your friends are the people your parents choose for you.

Things aren't so easy when you get to adolescence, to the murky waters and shades of gray and questioned moralities that come with becoming an adult. That's when things start to change, when lines blur and the sky turns green and the walls all come crashing down on you and all that you know.

But even then, being eleven is easier than being seventeen.

Right now, since you're there, every age in the world is easier than being seventeen.

You don't know how it happened, how things managed to change so drastically under your nose without you realizing it. It's hard to say because it's always the little things that define a relationship, the little things that somehow layer as one by happenstance.

At the beginning you hated him with the blind passion only a child can follow. He was obnoxious, he was a pain in the arse, and he drove you mad as hell, but you had to admit, he did make things interesting. No one else was very good at that, but he was. Merlin yes he was.

You fought with him and called him names and got hotly bothered with everything he did. It was simple. Effortless. You didn't have to think, you just acted, and the resulting negativity was what was meant to happen, supposed to happen. It was easy. The current flowed and you went along for the ride and he knew better than to expect more from you.

But as things moved along, your bond became altered, irrevocably so, and you didn't figure out until it was too late where all the warning signs were. When things are so subtle, so wholly minor in progression, it's difficult to pinpoint exactly when the situation went awry and out of your control, even now, by seventh year.

A fine web has been woven, with countless delicate stands merging, merging, and you were both caught in the middle of it. Together. Wide-eyed innocence was traded at the start of that year for a knowing companionship, a lone acoustic guitar being joined by another adding a little more depth, and there you were, making your cautious, self-conscious music.

It's weird. Occasionally tongue-tied. Sometimes, when you sit together at lunch, he asks you to pass the salt and you will and your elbow knocks over his glass of orange juice, spilling it all over his arm. You apologize profusely and he chuckles and both of you blush before clumsily re-starting the conversation.

You have blips on the radar, moments too sweet or too sour to qualify as moments between friends, and it freaks you out. It even scares you.

Not the occasional irregularities peppering your everyday lives – but how every irregular edge builds a step for the next moment to leap from and test out the winds.

Clunky as your affiliation was and still is, something too elusive for words has blossomed with a soft, well-worn vibrancy. It started with the two of you, but has become bigger, reverberant, embellishing your initial intimacy into something that enveloped you both without overwhelming you.

Quite simply, you glow in his presence. He makes you smile. He makes you ache with laughter. And, in turn, your glow rubs off on him and he is invincible. The fire and fantastic heat you both harbored never left your sharp dialogues – it just works in harmony rather than clashing in dissonance.

He's part of you, blended in like scent with the breeze, and things just fall into place with him. You don't have to think – your intuition just knows what to do without being told. He makes it easy for you to love him. He laughs and cracks jokes and makes you snort tea through your nose. He's hilarious.

It's not always sunshine and butterflies – you still have a tendency to clash and storm about and say nasty things, sometimes about things that matter and other times about things that don't – but most of the time, you coast. Glide.

It's you and it's him. Boy and girl. Friends. You're not the goddess he tried to paint you as and he's not the cockroach you tried to paint him as.

You're just people, two people, and a youthful, affectionate love has bloomed from the battleground of destruction your relationship frequently used to be.

You make sure his tie is on straight in the morning. You hang out with each others' friends. One time, you crept into his bed and slept there and made him sleep on the floor (something you were very sorry about the next morning). He holds your hand in the corridors, his thumb brushing against the soft patch of skin on the underside of your wrist and you always bristle with quiet pleasure, the magic never absent from the simple gesture no matter how many times he does it.

It's lovely. It's contented, but firmly retaining that achingly teenage quality of ungainliness which emanates so much warmth. Like yesterday, when you greeted him in the morning at breakfast, he gave you a hug and accidentally called you baby. Your friends were buzzing about it all day and you're still not recovered.

You stay with him all the time, just being there and enjoying his company and letting him hold you. He's so vivid, prominent without being overt with his fondness, and you would love to claim him as yours, put up your flag-pole, but you don't want to.

No, no, not yet. Not just yet. Everything about you two is so beautifully obvious, but you don't want to wreck something as good as this. Going slow and savoring him like ice cream is better than rushing him everywhere at once and leaving behind the glistening sweetness that comes with natural events bumbling forward with a cadence all their own.

You're going forward. You are. But you've learned that things only get more complicated as you get older and you know better than to push something this good.

Let it flow. Let these rough edges keep inspiring in you the purest love you've ever known. Let the layers build up and the climax unfold and the world open to be yours – because everyone knows where this is going and it's so comfortable and there's nothing else for you to actively fix.

While awkwardness prevails, this is just how it goes. Open mouth and insert foot, babe.

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**A/N**: I tried. I did. I'm sorry if it didn't work, but I worked it the best I could and now the effectiveness of my effort is up to you. Just be polite when you state your position.


End file.
